A Darker Shade of Magic (49 page)

“As potentially important a ‘novel of ideas’ as 1984.”

The Wall Street Journal

Trent McCauley is obsessed with making movies. But when his illegal download habit causes his family’s Internet to be cut off, he’s forced to run away from Bradford to London. Squatting in an East End pub, Trent falls in with a band of activists who introduce him to dumpster diving, graveyard raves and the anarchist girl of his dreams. When a new bill threatens to criminalise Internet creativity, the future looks bleak, but the film industry fat cats—and the MPs they hold in their pocket—haven’t reckoned with the power of a gripping movie to change people’s minds…

“A counter-culture rabble rouser.”

Booklist
(starred review)

“Doctorow’s books are just too enlightening to miss.”

Wired

Depth combines hardboiled mystery and dystopian science fiction in a future where the rising ocean levels have left New York twenty-one stories under water and cut off from the rest of the United States. But the city survives, and Simone Pierce is one of its best private investigators. Her latest case, running surveillance on a potentially unfaithful husband, was supposed to be easy. Then her target is murdered, and the search for his killer points Simone towards a secret from the past that can’t possibly be real—but that won’t stop the city’s most powerful men and women from trying to acquire it for themselves, with Simone caught in the middle.

Sometime in the near future, energy giant NovusCorp develops technology with an unexpected side-effect: it can transport objects and people from deep in the past to the present day.

For post-grad historian Nick Houghton, the controversy surrounding the programme matters less than the opportunity the company offers him. NovusCorp’s executives reveal their biggest secret: they have saved most of the people from Pompeii, minutes before the volcanic eruption. Somewhere in central Asia, far from prying eyes, the company has built a replica of the city. In it are thousands of real Romans.

The Romans may be ignorant of modern technology – for now – but city boss Marcus Barbatus wasn’t appointed by the emperor because he was soft. The Romans carved out the biggest empire the world had ever seen, thanks to the uncompromising leadership of men like Barbatus. The stage is set for the ultimate clash of cultures…

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